


in this moment, I can breathe

by Labyrinthinee



Series: JATP tumblr prompts [3]
Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Missing Scene, Tumblr Prompt, also kind of leads up to Julie's and Flynn's conversation at school, takes place after the edge of great performance, they talk about their feelings, well kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-14
Updated: 2021-01-14
Packaged: 2021-03-12 12:15:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28760154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Labyrinthinee/pseuds/Labyrinthinee
Summary: Alex sighed. “Look, I don’t know whatever it was that was happening out there—” He pointed towards the doors, making Luke grimace “—but something definitely did happen, so, just ask her about it.”“It was probably nothing, anyways…”Reggie scoffed. “Whatever it was, it was definitely not nothing, bro, sparks flew and all that! You guys oo—”“If you say ooze again, I’m gonna kill you before those jolts can,” rushed out Alex, shutting Reggie up effectively. "And you are going to Julie right now and I do not want to see you back here until you have worked it out. Got it?”
Relationships: Julie Molina/Luke Patterson
Series: JATP tumblr prompts [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2099433
Comments: 20
Kudos: 135





	in this moment, I can breathe

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ShipALLtheOTPs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShipALLtheOTPs/gifts).



> another prompt from tumblr.
> 
> This one was from the wonderful Ayra who has had an awful and chaotic day at work today and asked for this almost a week ago but I finally got around to it and I hope you like it 😉
> 
> If you want to request something there's a list on my [tumblr](http://serendipitee.tumblr.com/), I'd be happy to write some more drabbles!
> 
> The title is from "Joy" by Sleeping At Last which is an absolutely amazing song and you should definitely check it out!
> 
> Have fun reading and feedback is always appreciated,  
> Bea x.

__

_A silver lining spilling over,_  
_The rumor of buried treasure,_  
_The starting line of an adventure,_  
_It's a glimpse of light in a mine of gold._

__

__  


#### 

in this moment, I can breathe

Luke was pacing. He had started right after they had gotten back from their trip to the Orpheum with Willie.

Alex and Reggie watched him from the couch, growing more and more anxious with every turn of their best friend.

Luke did not pace. He never had reason to. If something bothered him you could bet on him tackling it head-on, speaking his mind, voicing his opinion straight forward, not caring if he hit a few bumps down the road.

So, Luke pacing, worried them. A lot.

“Dude, take a break,” breathed out Reggie after what must’ve been at least the fiftieth turn.

He didn’t, making the bassist throw an exasperated look at his bandmate. Alex just rolled his eyes, leaning forward, elbows on his knees. There were so many things he wanted to say, so many doubts he wanted to voice, about the jolts, their unfinished business, Willie, but he decided to pick the one thing he could actually do something about now.

“Luke, stop!”

At the command cutting through the tense air, Luke actually stopped, turning to Alex, confusion written all over his face. Never had Alex used that voice on him before. It was normally directed at Reggie whenever the other boy got too caught up in his babblings.

“Just talk to her.”

Luke opened his mouth, closed it again, rubbed his rabbit’s foot, eyes darting from Alex to Reggie and back. “I can’t,” he finally rushed out.

“If you’re not going to talk to her than at least stop doing… _that_!” Reggie waved his hand in Luke’s general direction. “You’re freaking me out, acting all Alex-like.”

Luke gaped. “I’m not—”

“You’re stressed out, you’re pacing, bro, you’re definitely Alex-ing.” Reggie nodded, obviously proud of his word creation and winked at the drummer.

“Okay, that’s just, no...” Alex sighed. “Look, I don’t know whatever it was that was happening out there—” He pointed towards the doors, making Luke grimace “—but something definitely did happen, so, just ask her about it.”

“It was probably nothing anyways…”

Reggie scoffed. “Whatever it was, it was definitely not nothing, bro, sparks flew and all that! You guys oo—”

“If you say ooze again, I’m gonna kill you before those jolts can,” rushed out Alex, shutting Reggie up effectively.

The bassist mumbled something that was undistinguishable, falling back into the couch, arms crossed over his chest and pouting.

In the meantime, Luke had started pacing again and Alex had had enough. “You—” He said, standing up and stepping right into Luke’s path, “You are going to Julie right now and I do not want to see you back here until you have worked it out. Got it?”

\- - -

Julie was lying on her stomach, feet up in the air, laptop propped onto one of her pillows. She was watching the video Carlos had taken from their performance, replaying the end again and again and again.

Sure, the footage was shaky, probably nothing compared to what her dad’s cameras had picked up, but the end— that part was pretty steady.

She had tried so hard to escape those big, beautiful, (dead) eyes but when Luke had replied to her with his guitar, she had thrown all caution into the wind. After all this was _Luke_.

The boy ( _ghost_ , supplied Flynn’s voice sharply) that had practically thrown her back into music, helping her with every step along the way. He had gifted her a freaking song after knowing her for less than a day.

It was the boy that understood her pain, could help her shape her thoughts and feelings into even more beautiful words and melodies. They created songs together that moved people, connected them with each other.

Luke who had that cute smile and made her feel all warm and fuzzy when they hung out under the pretense of writing, having sent off Alex and Reggie hours earlier.

So yeah, it had been so easy to smile at him as he stepped up to her, looked at her with that damn smile. She had thought, that’d been it, and then, _and then_ , he had had the audacity to her at the piano.

The way he had looked at her there, all soft and warm and just so _Luke_ was branded onto her mind.

Carlos’s video didn’t really help, because all it manifested was the fact, that she hadn’t imagined it. This had really happened, not like that dance at school, because that, yeah, nope, she was not going back down that road.

She paused the video shortly before it ended, just to go back to where Luke stepped up to her at the piano with his guitar. Carlos had completely cut off her head but she was too busy watching Luke to even notice.

A knock at her door startled her. Julie called out a ‘come in’, expecting her dad and almost had a heart attack when Luke stepped through the door a moment later.

Quickly and very violently shutting her laptop, she sat up on her bed, keenly aware that she was wearing her pj’s and he was still wearing the clothes from the performance, had just thrown his oversized flannel over them and god, he looked cute.

“Hey…,” he breathed out, fingers rubbing his rabbit’s foot and for a moment, Julie was surprised to find that he almost seemed nervous.

Even more so than he had this morning at school when he had told her that she made him a better writer. Yeah, she still wasn’t completely over that confession.

“Hi.” Julie patted the space next to her on the bed for him to sit down.

Luke hesitated, but when she smiled at him, he answered it with one of his own, planting himself a safe distance away from her. It was a miracle that he didn’t immediately fall off the edge.

“What’s up?” She asked, letting her eyes wander over him unabashedly. He was too busy staring at his hands to notice.

It wasn’t unnormal that Luke was distracted but he always focused on her and the boys. Julie could count on that, so seeing him like this, it tugged on her heart strings.

“I—I, um, I wanted to talk to you about earlier…,” he started and Julie froze.

Oh, no. She wasn’t prepared for this. A large part of her had definitely hoped that they could just forget about what had led up to their moment at the piano.

“Did… did I do something wrong?”

The question startled her out of her internal mini freak-out. “What? No! Why?”

He bit his lip, looked at her quickly, before concentrating back on the good luck charm between his index finger and thumb. “I thought you were mad at me. At the start of the performance… because, you know, you wouldn’t... look at me...”

She could barely make out the last part, his voice having grown lower with every word.

“No, Luke, no, that’s—” Julie stopped her vehement protest abruptly, when he raised his head, eyes meeting hers.

Luke looked crushed and she didn’t know what to do with it. God, how she wished, she could touch him, hug him. Instead, she scooted a little closer, giving him a soft smile.

“I wasn’t mad at you,” she said earnestly, making sure, that Luke actually believed her. “I was… it was…”

“Yeah?” Luke leaned closer, taking his hat off his head, hair sticking out every which way and Julie had to look away for a moment.

“Flynn!” She finally blurted out. “It was all Flynn!”

He raised an eyebrow, eyes roaming over her face and Julie caught them, lingering on her lips. It didn’t calm her beating heart at all. “Flynn?”

“Honestly, it’s really stupid…” She tried to wave it off. “But I was never mad at you.”

Luke must’ve decided to take pity on her because he asked cockily, “Not even when we went through your dream box?”

Julie frowned about to retort, but he looked at her with those ( _dead_ , echoed Flynn’s voice) eyes and she smiled. “I guess, you learnt your lesson from that.”

“Definitely.” He nodded earnestly, rubbing the back of his neck. His mouth opened once, closed and he squinted his eyes at her as if trying to gauge her reaction to his next question. “About the performance… I hope it was okay, that I walked up to you during your solo?”

Her smile grew a little bigger, heart fluttering in her chest as she remembered the moment. There was no way she was going to forget about that any time soon. After all, the second she’d open the laptop it once again would be right there. 

“No, I…” She looked at Luke, sitting on her bed, in her room, like he had always belonged her and suddenly her heart ached. Because Flynn was right, Luke was made of air but it really didn’t matter. Right here, right now he was real, to her. “I really liked it.”

 _I really like you_ , was what she didn’t say.

He must’ve understood either way because the smile he gave her was different from all the others. More blinding, captivating her heart in a way that she was sure there’d be traces of it forever.

“I—I’m glad. I, um, liked it, too.”

This time his eyes dropped so obviously to her lips that there was no denying it anymore, no passing it off as an accident because they were singing together and, knowing what the other person’s mouth was doing, was important.

Had they been a normal boy and a normal girl, Julie would’ve maybe tried to grab his hand, maybe they would have even kissed, but they weren’t and they didn’t.

Instead, she stood up, picking up her mom’s six string. “Hey, can you show me the F major 7 chord again? I think, I forgot it…”

Luke blinked, then he grinned as she settled back down next to him. And while he patiently went through all the chords with her for the nth time, Julie couldn’t help the thought manifesting in her mind with every passing second.

He was real. So real, that it ached and hurt sometimes but that never diminished the times like these when the world around her seemed to sing and dance, a melody encompassing them that she had already heard once upon a daydream.

The realization made breathing easier, let her heart flutter freely whenever he smiled at her.

Luke and her weren’t normal. But they were them and that was all that mattered.


End file.
